Miss. Parsons is a fresh-out-of-college high school English Literature teacher who has a passion for love, Shakespeare and apparently, hunky southern cowboys. She pays close attention to detail, including the flirty smiles exchanged by students and...
My class was settling into their seats and they were all chatting away with each other, couples holding hands underneath the tables and others with their backs turned to each other clearly wanting to be as far away from each other as possible, this brought a frown to my face. Some even went as far as to move seats without my saying to do so and yet, I hadn't corrected them nor did I have any plans too.
"Okay class," I clasped my hands together and began pushing them out as if I were cracking my knuckles. Then I huffed out a breathe I hadn't released was stuck in my lungs and my shoulders fell, "We're going to be presenting our Romeo and Juliet projects." Close to every single student in that room rolled their eyes once the words left my lips.
Comments were thrown my way, however I brushed them off as I typically did. "Y'all will be called up with your partners and each group has 5 minutes to present," The words flowed naturally out of my mouth and I hadn't figured why it was such a problem until I heard snickering.
"Y'all? Who are you, Mabel?" My cheeks grew red-hot at this, seeing as this was the North, we didn't hear many people talking with combined words. I moved my hand down to my wrist and begin playing with the jewels on my bracelet.
Ignoring the voice, I called the first pair, "Colton and Mabel." Colton nudged her continuously with his right arm, she merely raised an eyebrow in his direction. I offered him a small smile and he shot one right back. They raised from their seats and started to walk to the front of the class, I spun on my heel and sat in my swivel seat pushing it in their direction. Colton cleared his throat in an overly-dramatic type of way causing a few giggles to elicit from some girls who suddenly sat straighter in their seats.
"Our project is about what made Romeo and Juliet fall in love with each other," Colton began, instead of looking at the class he looked at his partner as he explained it, "their attraction was almost immediately there and understandably overwhelming for the both of them." He continued, his blue eyes were now locked in on her and only her. Mabel was completely oblivious to this as she was solely focused on her hands, picking running one nail along the underneath part of her other nails. He tapped the screen of the SmartBoard to show the next slide.
"Juliet was an innocent, very young girl and when Romeo professes his undying love to her, she's scared and is unsure if she reciprocates those feelings." Now she was reading off the screen in a monotone voice, if you closed your eyes, you would think it was the automatic voice to a video game. She brought her hand up to her face, her index finger immediately wrapping around a traitor hair that fell from her otherwise perfect bun.
"Although, as we continue to read the play, Juliet chooses to follow her heart and finds that she is in fact falling deeply in love with Romeo, even if she knows it's not the right thing to do. She is very conscious of her feelings and they are very extreme and almost too strong. However, she manages to keep them under control by thinking rationally." In spots, Mabel is naturally a slow talking and it's easy to see where her voice picks up in places; it's as if she's speaking to someone. Her eyes are the color of coffee before you add cream or sugar but the innocence in them is very pronounced, she darts them from me to the board in a very quick fashion. Colton taps the screen with his knuckle.
"Romeo's one flaw is that he is very passionate, almost overly-passionate in a way that he can tend to let his feelings get in the way of rational thinking. He even confesses about a one-sided love he has for some Rosaline chick." Colton swallows hard before he continues. "He's loyal to his friends, smart and excitable." He began to list them out using his fingers.
"But in the end, the love Juliet and him have for each other is undeniable." Mabel's cheeks are tinged a pink color as she gnaws on her bottom lip. "And that's what makes it one of the greatest love stories ever told." My male students groaned and started making kissing noises in Colton's direction, he swats his hand at them and walks off to his seat.
"I'd like to see someone beat that." I announced, other pupils crossed their arms over their chests and huffed. "Carson and Genevieve, you're up next." I catch Abbie's eye, she smiles reassuringly at me. I haven't had a chance to pair them together seeing as this project has been in progress for an awful long while. I shoot her a wink and she smiles softly at me.
'Let's get this shit show over with." Carson moans and Genevieve hits his arm. "Rough, I like it." He shimmies in her direction and I can't hold back an eye roll.
"Carson." I warn raising my eyebrow with my glasses sitting on the bridge of my nose, giving me that intimidating teacher look. He doesn't reply, only shoves his hands deep into his pockets and begins his presentation by mumbling towards the floor.
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"Well, this Carson kid sounds like a player and if you care an ounce about Abbie, don't pair them together." I was sat on my floral printed rug with my seating chart on the coffee table in front of me. Harper had helped herself to my stash of ice cream and pantry full of toppings.
"But she came to me and asked." I countered, tilting my head to the side hoping it would give me a better idea, it didn't. "Colton and Mabel are definitely going together." I happily scribbled their names into two empty boxes in the front of the classroom.
"And... Mabel is Dustin's little sister?" Harper pointed with her spoon, looking off into space as if trying to figure out their family tree. "That would make you her... sister-in-law?"
"If Dustin and I get married, yes." My face grows hot at the thought. I write Genevieve's name into a box and tap my pencil against my lip, the coldness of the metal part feels almost nice.
"I still have yet to meet him." She sings, Speck's, whose head was laying on her stomach in hopes of a marshmallow falling off her over-filled bowl, perked up at the change in her voice. "Not you Speckle's, don't worry baby." She smacks her lips together at him and he wags his tail feverishly in reply.
"Oh and I've met your man?" It was a rhetorical question to which Harper lowers her head too.
"I don't have a man." She's suddenly quieter and I purse my lips together carefully selecting my next words.
"His loss." She smiles at this and shovels her spoon back into her bowl of diabetes.
"Maybe you should pair Abbie with another boy and see if this gets a reaction out of Carson." Never has Harper helped me in pairing my student's together, in fact, she's almost been overwhelmingly against it. A smile breaks out onto my face and I pencil in Abbie with a boy named Jaycob, he was the pitcher for the baseball team and one of the best runner's we had on the track and field team.
"Only 12 more students to pair up and then we can move onto the next class." I clapped my hands, although the happiness was not shared seeing as Harper threw her head back and released a whine causing Speck's to answer with one of his own. "Get ahold of yourselves." I pushed my glasses further up onto my nose and rubbed the pencil in between the palms of both my hands, looking over the class list.
"Just drag your finger up the list and see who you land on them and repeat that until you're happy." Harper suggested and shook my head. I took this seriously and she was making a joke out of it.
"Eat you ice cream and hush." I uttered, which seemed to work. "Now who in the hell am I gonna pair with you, Mr. Carson?"
